#hanging-with-the-horrorterrors

[7cfc00]

MORE dndads homestuck au... S2 teen version. (again, classpects and derse/prospit alignment from @scamlikelys ‘s post)

[thewertsearch]

Scratch really doesn't get it at all, does he?

Yes, Scratch, Slick absolutely does want to kill Snowman - but I encourage you to examine your assumption that he can't also want to kiss her.

You see, the problem is that when the subject of Carapacian romance is broached, your considerable puppet intellect-

EB: do you know if rose is ok? EB: did it work??? CG: SHE'S FINE. CG: SHE WOKE UP ALIVE ON DERSE.

And she’s still Horrorterror-boosted, which is not a good sign. Evidently, even death wasn’t enough to break her dark pact, and it's clear the Gods aren't done with her yet.

Hey, at least she’s no longer in Grimdark Mode. I’ll take my victories where I can get ’em.

CG: THAT'S THE RULE, JOHN. YOU KISS A DEAD PLAYER IN TIME, AND THEIR DREAM SELF TAKES OVER, ASSUMING THEY STILL HAVE ONE. […] EB: it would not have worked on my dad then? EB: or rose's mom… :( […] CG: IS THAT YOUR GAME, EGBERT. HAVE YOU HAD YOUR EYE ON MADAME LALONDE, AND YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR A CONVENIENT RESURRECTION OPPORTUNITY TO BUST OUT YOUR MOST PASSIONATE SMOOCHMOTIFS KEPT IN RESERVE? […] EB: i am frankly pretty upset about finding them dead in the magic castle, and i guess i was wondering aloud if something could have been done.

Hang on, let me whip out the ol' Johnspeak translator again.

CG: WE CAN'T HAVE YOU GETTING ALL MOROSE WHILE WE'VE GOT SO MANY IRONS IN THE FIRE. CG: FUCK, LOADED PHRASE, FORGET I SAID THAT.

Pfffft

Alright, Karkat, you're forgiven.

[mindfang-srevenge]

Homestuck Kids and Which TMA Entity They're Associated With: A Second List By Static, with ADDITIONAL NOTATION That None Of This Is An Insult to Anyone

Read the first of these, featuring the OG troll gang: here

John: Desolation, and hear me out. Much like the argument I made for Sollux, everything gets ripped away from John over and over again. He loses his world, then his house, then his LIFE, then his DAD, then his FRIENDS, then his LIFE (again). John is continually losing everything he cares about, and it forms a weirdly core part of his character, especially considering the fact that he keeps repressing that loss and presenting a chipper face over it.

Rose: Eye. Rose is all about finding secrets (how she fell in with Doc Scratch) and breaking the game in the most interesting way possible. She stumbles across the game because she's looking for information about how to bring Jaspers back. She's constantly looking to shed light on secrets and discover answers, which is definitely eye-aligned. She's even willing to make a pact with the Horrorterrors to find out information about the Green Sun and the end of the game, which makes her an avatar in my book.

Dave: This might just be the overarching entity for all Time players, actually, but Dave-- much like Aradia-- is End aligned due to his reoccurring fascination with dead things. The man outright admits it several times-- he's just as fascinated by death as she is, with perhaps even a more morbid tilt than traditional archaeology. He's also a time traveler, which makes him continually privy to information about how the others will die unless he does something (with Davesprite as a noteable example). If he took on a more passive role (Knights are an active class) I think this might present itself a little more heavily, much like Aradia's connection is more prominent. Basically maybe aradia and dave should just hang outsometime they might be friends ahave we considered this yet hang on wait where are you going---

Jade: Vast, but heavily influenced by the Lonely. We can't talk about Jade without discussing the heavy influences that her isolation has had over her life, but her powers align so heavily with the Vast that that isolation takes on an entirely different context. She's separated from everyone but Bec by vast expanses of ocean. She has the ability to make things Vast or not-Vast by virtue of being a Space player. She is, once again, separated from everyone during the Yard by vast expanses of paradox space. She is continually alone, but in that alone-ness she's physically isolated, which overall pushes her from Lonely to a proper Vast categorization.

Jane: Extinction. In the alpha timeline, Jane is the herald of the end, but she's more than that. She's the heiress to CrockerCorp, the establishment that will eventually fucking TERRAFORM the entire earth-- which, if that doesn't classify as an extinction-level event, I don't know what does. Jane's also our introductory character for a dead session, wherein all of the consorts are literally extinct. Really the CrockerCorp stuff is more important, though-- Jane oftentimes remains loyal to the company, even going as far as to restart it on Earth C, despite what CrockerCorp has previously been responsible. She's constantly a herald of change, and death.

Roxy: Dark. It's low-hanging fruit, sure, but she's heavily textually involved with the obscuring of information. I DISTINCTLY REMEMBER, although I cannot find the text sources for it, that when she's drunk, Calliope can't see her, which is VERY Dark-aligned. Roxy's methods are also obscured, since she's a void player, and she's a Derse dreamer, which means her mental state is . . . also pretty dark, if just metaphorically. Due to her position in the retcon, as well, Roxy's past is obscured, lost to another universe entirely.

Dirk: This motherfucker is hard to sort, but in a pinch I think I'd say Stranger over Web. He does have definite ties to the Web-- if it were a thing in TMA, I'd say he serves both simultaneously, but that's a purely fanon construct so we're gonna play it safe. Dirk is constantly hiding his true self behind layers of masks, mirrors, and splinters. Nobody can every talk to the real Dirk Strider-- instead, they end up talking to Hal or DreamGhostDirk or some other similar entity. The puppet stuff draws into this, as well-- the original Lil Cal is Dirk's, before LE takes over the body, and Lil Cal is a horrorshow of Stranger imagery. (He's also just a horrorshow) Dirk is obsessed with building almost-human constructions (see Squarewave and Sawtooth), as well as hiding behind these constructs to conceal himself or his motives. Overall, Stranger, with heavy ties to the Web.

Jake: Lonely. Even when he's around people, Jake has trouble connecting. Whereas Jade is separated physically, Jake is also separated socially. He can't seem to make the relationship with Dirk ever work out (even if a chunk of that is Dirk's fault). He can't talk to Jane about anything, ever, especially that he's not interested in her.

[davekat-sucks]

I read your ideas for your yt channel vids and I gotta say feferi is SUCH a wasted opportunity. Like the fact her mom is a horror terror alone is so cool- why couldn’t one of the beyond cannon episodes focus on how she convinced them to make the dream bubbles? Why can’t we have her and rose have a chat about them the way she got to have a chat with Jade earlier in hs? Even plot and major lore connections aside she has such a funny, weird relationship history with the rest of the cast, if they’re gonna go for mellodrama why not go for her weird sollux eridan dream bubble love triangle thing. And all of this would have been easy bc apparently ghosts were just showing up in candy/meat (iirc that’s how jade’s corpse got possessed by Alt calliope but I don’t keep up w the epilogues much). It’s just idk, super disappointing. Especially since fandom loves to water her down to fish puns, if they remember her at all.

Feferi should have talked to Rose when it comes to Horrorterrors too. Maybe have a payoff on why Feferi had come to Jade's dream and tell her she was DEAD. Feferi also DID create the Dream Bubbles, as her wish was to have an afterlife for her friends. Gl'bgolyb granted her wish because she was nice enough to feed her (unlike the Condesce). However, the guide for the Dream Bubbles was taken by Aradia for one reason or another. Aradia would seem to be hanging with Horror Terrors too in Pesterquest, despite that the close connection should have been with Feferi. And by Epilogues/HS2/Beyond Canon, the Dream Bubbles is said to be destroyed by the black holes. Which means Feferi's place for her friends after they died, both doomed and the actual timeline, was for naught. Sure the ghosts seem to have arrived on Earth C in Epilogues, but we don't know what they do on that planet. Like do they live a regular life as ghosts just hanging around? Could they interact with the real world and do things like get a job? Could they be destroyed from exorcism or other means? Would they even take part of the current war between Karkat and Jane? Maybe Feferi could do something like facing against Alt Calliope since she was the one who made said black holes. She could go be friendly with Roxy and also be suspicious of the Calliope with her. She doesn't even get to say anything as Fefetasprite^2 even in the Vriska hell visual novel because people love her for being just a JOKE CHARCTER of only saying 3833 < 383 because being a cute silly girl is the only known trait for Feferi and Nepeta.

[sntechsupport]

Hey, I have a few questions about whatever the fuck just happened.

Why did our session still generate when we all died trying to enter

Why were all our dream selves sleeping in crypts in derse and prospit's cores instead of being dead in normal towers on moons containing more normally-placed crypts

Why were the moons completely missing

What the fuck is a dream bubble

Why the fuck could one of my co players control an alchemized rc drone from outside the session using a dreamed-up remote controller

Ad 1: Being dead doesn't stop you from playing, as you have found out by now.

Ad 2: Upon death of the Waking Self, the Dream Self begins stops shoving signs of life (despite it not being dead) and the Carapacians consider it to be dead. They move all Dream Selves they consider dead (whether truly dead or not) to the Crypt in the Dream Moon's Core.

Ad 3) Dream Moon Moons (Prospit Moon and Derse Moon) are a starting location for the Dream Selves; they hold the Dream Rooms and some introductory NPCs. However, if all Dream Selves from on Moon are moved to the Crypt before they can Wake Up, the probability that the Dream Rooms get even visited and the intro NPCs spoken to are basically null (we ran statistics on this). Game saves power and memory and just deletes them. You can re-spawn those locations if you want by checking Enable Pointless Areas and then refreshing the game.

Ad 4) Dream Bubble is where ghosts go from the Incinisphere. AKA: If you die in game and you don't have a Dream Self, this is where your consciousness is moved to. Dream Bubbles are not a part of the game, they were made solely by the Noble Circle of Horrorterrors. As Dream Bubbles are space pockets made to withhold conscience, their "geografy" is an external projection of your thoughts... and of other people's thoughts as they collide. That doesn't shift as much as you'd think; once you your senses perceive something, you tend to subconsciously think about the thing more, therefore reinforcing its existence in the Dream Bubble. Funnily enough, the Dream Bubbles hang on "Sleeper Code" like the Dream Selves, which means that if you are sleeping and do not have a Dream Self, your consicousness gets temporarily moved there too.

Ad 5) That sounds like a Resistance Aspect Player bullshit. Happens. Be grateful.

Sincerely

SN Tech Support (Gear)

[autumnalwalker]

Heads Up Seven Up Tag

Thank you for the tag, @winterandwords.

Passing the (pressure free) tag to @oh-no-another-idea, @rickie-the-storyteller, @on-noon, @sarahlizziewrites, @tc-doherty, @theroseempress, @ahordeofwasps, and the usual open tag for anyone else who wants to participate.

From chapter 21 of Empty Names:

A custom ringtone that Eris hasn’t heard in years plays over the van’s speakers and cuts off her question.  She doesn’t need to look at the caller ID displayed on the dashboard console to know who it is.  A part of her is surprised the caller still has her number, but then again, Eris still has hers.  And the two of them do still speak from time to time.

She considers letting it go to voicemail.  Or even hitting the button to hang up altogether.  She has more important things to focus on right now than a phone call from an ex who might have been trying to flirt with her a week ago.

An ex who wouldn’t call unless it was an emergency.  An ex who, if she really wanted to get back together, would more likely rope mutual friends into arranging a “chance meeting” where they would “just so happen” to have the opportunity and reason to do something romantic together like walk through a botanical garden, fix an engine together, or fight each other until they can barely stand.  An ex who would drop everything if Eris were the one to call.

Godammit.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Eris says to Road before tapping the green call icon on the dashboard screen.  “Yo, Gretchen, I’m driving right now with Road, so I’ve got you on speakerphone.  What’s up?”

With any luck, knowing Road’s on the line should keep Gretchen from trying to dredge up old relationship history that Eris is even less in the mood to deal with right now than normal.  And if it really is an emergency, it will be good to keep Road in the loop.

“Great,” Gretchen’s voice says through the van’s speakers, “that saves me the trouble of making a second call.  Do either of you know anything about non-euclidean, shifting, tesseract-esque architecture of the sort Lovecraftian horrorterrors like to make nests in?”

[trollbreak]

heehoo and aurrel neow!!! /lh

Ouh u pick an interesting pair!!! This going under cut bc teehee details to build to the Pondering. Also this is all very train of thought due to the heehoo Lore so :P

SO UM!!! First up, some things abt Heehoo our lad! And Boohoo, who’s um. Kind of inherently tied to him! They used to be the same clown. Teehee sometimes ur church worships eldritch things and sometimes u do weird magic shit that makes one person two. And it’s a whole thing!! Like um. With Gedian and Echo it was. Less than great in the end. But Heehoo and Boohoo had a great go of it!! They’re besties and holding hands and siblings and heehoo will kill u a million times if u try to hurt boohoo and boohoo will send a god after u for the reverse. They’re silly little clowns together!!! Smth smth comedy and tragedy masks, smth smth two sides of a coin, I love them in short

NOW!! I’m gonna face this as like, just swapping Heehoo and aurrel, rather than the person that was there before Heehoo and boohoo, bc um. I don’t have the braincells to make aurrel 2 guys rn lmao

SO UM!!! The base person would ofc b very different. But also? Aurrel is an ass. Even when he cares someone. He’d um. Be mean to boohoo without thinking abt it and it would Crush him Every Time that boohoo is so niceys kind and 🥺 until he like. Chilled out. He’s still very bitey tho, there’s just less baring teeth beforehand. U get faces and rude words when he’s angry and in a Mood as he is, but as a clown? He’d be very >:3 until he’s actively trying to murder u. Also, by VIRTUE of clownness, he would actually do murder!! Like he doesn’t actually do that as a Revant!! He feels like shit if he hurts someone too bad!! But um. He’d be. Violently protective of boohoo, and that would be a very easy way for him to just be. Very violent in general. Dudes living up to the murder clown image and then some. Sir please stop bringing folks to church just to murder them with your teeth, ur scaring the hoes.

He would eventually mellow out a little with time! …Eventually. And only a little. He um. Would get evil abt it tho. I think he’d dip from the church he grew up in the Second that the Gaze wound up as the host for their resident horrorterror, bc he’s like. Wtf, you’re nice. This isn’t how this shits supposed to work. Fuck off. He’d go kind of just churchless after that, and just um. Would do a lot of murder till he got accepted into the fleet to do cullings for a reason beyond ‘i wanna’ again. Dude grows up to be malicious and fucked up abt it. His thing abt body horror is a point of shame, and um. He goes exposure therapy abt it by being more fucked up. Bestie that’s not healthy. Boohoo is um. Going to therapy abt how she’s. A little glad he left. Dude got scary.

HEEHOO THO!!! Um. He’s still silly little guy :3 but now he’s Ferret instead of Corgi and he go BOING!!! I think he’s still doesn’t really talk much bc he doesn’t have much to say! But he makes a LOT of noises sometimes. Also: fidget toy collection. Cargo pants of em. And now he doesn’t do any murder mostly!!! Not unless someone else starts it for suresies. I think Junie def adopts him quicker, due to the hes more roam around and hang out with random folks. And they’re climbing into places they shouldn’t together!!! Please imagine for me junie and Heehoo Revant sat on a rooftop together. Heehoo is on a box or smth so he can kicky his feet. Are u imagining it for me? He’s so fucking ^-^. He’s also very much involved in rebel activity but shhh we don’t worry about thaaaaat, what he’s got going on with Bill is his business, we don’t need to knooooowwwww-

[homestuckexamination]

How would you assign the major arcana for a homestuck tarot deck? (I know there’s an official one, but it kind of sucks from an analysis perspective)

Even if you don’t know anything about tarot (I only have a cursory knowledge because I just like the whole aesthetic) I’d still love to see any other people give it a shot. Here’s my go at it:

0 the fool: John/breath aspect

1 the magician: Rose

2 the high priestess: Jade/space aspect

3 the empress: Feferi/life aspect

4 the emperor: Dave/time aspect

5 the hierophant: Gamzee/rage aspect

6 the lovers: dad and mom

7 the chariot: Karkat/blood aspect

8 Strength: Nepeta (and equius)/heart aspect

9 the hermit: Windswept Questicant

10 the wheel of fortune: Vriska

11 Justice: Terezi/mind aspect

12 The Hanged Man: Sollux/Doom aspect

13 Death: Lord English

14 Temperance: Kanaya

15 the devil: Bec Noir

16 the tower: Tavros falling off cliff

17 the star: Jake/hope aspect

18 the moon: derse/horrorterrors/void aspect

19 the sun: prospit/skaia/light aspect

20 judgement: The heroic/just clock

21 the world: genesis frog

I'm just, going to default to yours, because I literally know so little about Tarot- Like genuinely I got nothing of value to add here. Sorry.

[goeticgalaxy]

(this was asked on @daily-joey-claire but i have too much to say about this to talk about it there)

i am so normal about this au btw so yeah

to your 1st question- since dæmons are like extensions of the soul, and byers/the lusii have like different places in the plot already, they’re pretty much the same. i think twins (like the soleils) would share a dæmon tho

ok! onto which dæmons everyone has!!!!!

BETA KIDS/TROLLS

since dæmons settling is used as analogous for growing up/sort of also puberty? june’s dæmon wouldn’t settle until dadbert dies. dave and jade’s both would already be settled when they start the game, and rose’s would settle once she started communing with the horrorterrors. also when it came to naming them, i wanted their dæmons to have like. normal names ig. since the beta kids are the normalist homestuck characters.

since there are fifty billion beta trolls ill speed through the thought processes i had. karkat’s dæmon settles last bc hes in a state of arrested development. like act 6 last. aradia doesn’t have a dæmon anymore bc she died before entering the game :( (ALSO IT IS NOT THANOS AS IN THE MARVEL CHARACTER) uhhh pretend kanaya’s dæmon says f, tavros is so newfoundland dæmon coded, gamzee is a badger bc they are really unassuming looking but are like a genuine threat, etc etc

oh also vriska is a hyena bc she is *so* hyena coded, id say more than she is spider coded. spiders are associated often with like. manipulation, and vriska just… isn’t that manipulative. she’s pretty straight-forward actually. it’s like that one post about orc stealth. she gets ppl to do what she wants bc she’s like genuinely physically stronger and also has mind control. mind control on its own doesn’t really count as manipulation. the only really spiderlike things about her are her thing with eights and her mom. sure she’s clever, but not in a manipulative way. really, she’s mostly an opportunist. hyenas often symbolize treachery, and in some arab folklore they can hypnotize humans. anyways hyena vriska truther.

ALPHA KIDS

jane has specifically an aesculapius snake, bc of their associations w/ healing. she hangs out on janes spoon/forkkind to mimic the rod of asclepius and also sort of the caduceus. she def settled last. idk what to say w/ jake, hes just very much a guy who’d have a spider monkey dæmon. dirk is a borzoi bc he is shaped like one (fig 1) and cain bc bro strider and also how he views his splinters and even the other alphas and auoohj yeah. anyways roxy is so lion. and his name is bc void is very much about creation and bc it’s parallel is light they both have such strong associations with knowledge!!!! they’re so!!!!

HIVESWAP

ok ok ok so ik in the post i said joey’s dæmon is nike but kore just fits her better i think esp bc of her mommy issues. uhh i think joey would be sort of upset that her dæmon is a brown bear and not like a swan or something, but she represents like joey’s defensive streak i think. also mommy issues. jude is an eagle bc of their associations with knowledge and also bc of the myth of prometheus (jude is sosososososososo prometheus coded btw) xefros is a sloth. i don’t need to say more. dammek is a tomcat, probably a tuxedo.

ANYWAYS I HOPE THIS ANSWERS YOUR QUESTION @opalescent-apples AND TY FOR ASKING IT!!!!!

bonus alphas and their dæmons:

[rubsjuice]

Carapace games

All cloned carapaces have innate knowledge of chess and that's what most people used to enjoy for leisure in the moons, though card and other board games were also common. In alternia, midnight city citizens enjoy gambling games and games they've archeologized from ancient troll ruins and artifacts.

Child carapaces enjoy playing a chess-based cops-and-robbers-esque game where each player in one of two teams has a specific role, though children tend to mostly invent the more intricate parts of the game. There are also games and playing activities based on religion, especially stuff like "gods and horrorterrors".

People like stickball a lot too, but in recent time table stickball is sort of a taboo to play, unless you like to hang out in very specific bars.

[thewertsearch]

Second part of the giga-ask compilation!

@publicuniversalworstie asked: Why assume the Horrorterrors would know that changing events would create a doomed timeline? That assumes both A) that the horrorterrors know the future and B) that they don't think it can really be changed. Maybe they genuinely thought they could change things, such as by perhaps fulfilling all the requisite loops a different way? Imagine a scenario where a time traveler learns of their death, therefore being destined to die, and instead fake their death to create the conditions under which they learned of the death originally.

It's possible. But if the Horrorterrors do have a way to trick the Alpha Timeline like that, then they've really been holding out on us by not mentioning it to the Players. Such a revelation would completely change the game - we might even be able to fake the Earth's death.

Anonymous asked: i want to learn more about coding to analyze homestuck better - do you have a place i could start? resources? idk love the liveblog hope you're doin well :]

Absolutely! I've got two separate answers for you, depending on what your goal is here.

If your main goal is just to analyse Homestuck, then you’re probably best off picking a language whose syntax is easy to understand, such as Python. You'll pick up on the basic logic pretty quickly, and the ~ATH snippets will start to make a lot more sense.

If you’re actually interested in programming for its own sake, then I recommend you start with my own first language, C. It’s a lot harder for a newbie to get to grips with, but doing so will give you a much more solid theoretical foundation then ostensibly ‘easier’ languages.

W3schools is a decent starting resource for both languages - but if you need more specific guidance, let me know, and I'd be happy to help!

@skelekingfeddy asked: actually grubmom having the same color wires as in that pic of sahlee wasnt intentional! i based it on how sollux’s game grubs have red and blue wires attached to them

Serendipity!

Anonymous asked: Did you run any mysterious ~ath programs on that computer of yours?

Honestly, running ATH on that thing would probably have improved it.

Anonymous asked: One voice headcanon I have for Terezi is the English dub of Power from Chainsaw man

Honestly, she sounds pretty much exactly how I imagine Terezi does. She even has the horns!

@martinkhall asked: I'm surprised none of the suggested instruments for a time player were an ocarina.

Some fruit is just too low-hanging.

@delicate-ruins asked: what's an animal you like that you think doesn't show up very much in media, be it fiction or news or just generally? example: i like secretary birds. but except for videos about them, i have never heard them references.

They're not obscure, per se, but there will never be enough sloths in media. The only fictional sloth of note is Sid from Ice Age – and he does not do them justice.

Capybaras are also underrated as hell – so much so that LibreOffice, which I'm using to edit this compilation, doesn’t even recognize the word as real!

Anonymous asked: “I’m trying to figure out if it’s fully a Breath outfit, or if there’s some Heir stuff too.” the general rule for god tier outfits is that the colors and symbol represent the aspect, the clothes represent the class. so, for example, if two princes of different aspects ascended, their clothing style would be the same but they would a have different color scheme. @skaiandestiny asked: If you haven't already figured it out, class informs the godtier outfit and aspect informs the colors and icon!

In that case, there is something about John’s outfit that says ‘heir’ – but nothing really stands out to me.

@driventopoison asked: Hey, I don't know if it's just me but it seems like you've skipped ahead. I have been following your liveblog daily, but I haven't seen you come across the windy thing yet. Is this because you were using the app or something? Also just want to let you know that I love your liveblog. Keep up the good work!

Thank you! Anyway, John’s Windy Thing is indeed documented on the liveblog, and it’s visible to me. I was using the app for some of that segment, though – are app-made posts particularly buggy?

@classpecting-guide-official asked: story about a modded game of sburb where the characters notice that something isn't right and slowly realize that their world is a lie

Back in Act 1, this is pretty much what I thought was happening. It was a simpler time.

@ignis-cain asked: Note the colors the capslock flashes for WV.

When WV locks his capsule, the button’s light flashes red and green – but I’m not sure what the significance of these colors is, in this situation.

Anonymous asked: i know i'm SUPER late to answer this, but i think the instantiation thing is the same as any video game, newly made with a prebaked history. when you name your character, that has been their name for their whole life, even though you thought it up a few seconds ago. when you enter the medium, the planet has a history and the denizens have memories, even though they just showed up when you entered.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is indeed what’s going on. The implications are just a lot more wild when the game is physically real, rather than virtual!

@kintatsu asked: So, I know I'm a little late to the party, but I have to point out: Alternian sunlight doesn't need to be THAT much stronger than Earth's to blind Terezi as quickly as it did. Trolls are nocturnal, which means they almost definitely have a tapetum lucidum (eyeshine membrane), which means that however much light entered Terezi's eyeballs? Her retinas were blasted by every photon twice.

Damn, Vriska. For a second, I thought this ask was explaining why Terezi wasn't in as much pain as I'd thought - but this alternate explanation might actually be worse than what I was picturing!

@delicate-ruins asked: It's delightful to see somebody read Homestuck and be as charmed by it as I and a lot of my friends were way back when we first read it, and the calm, digesting pace at which you're enjoying it is honestly so nice. I rushed way too much to catch up since my friends recommended it in about 2016, which means I went from knowing nothing about the comic to being caught up on it in like a week. I never sat down with the ideas and thought "hey, does this mean XYZ?" because quite often I got the answer five seconds later as I rushed to catch up. But seeing you asking those questions is so so fun. Yeah, DOES it mean that?? Guess we'll find out! In the meantime, we get to guess, which means we basically get to have fun twice. It's reigniting my enjoyment of homestuck quite significantly, I think!

Thank you! It’s really nice to be able to engage in a dialogue about the comic through these asks, which is something that wouldn't be possible if I was speeding through it. As I always say, I'm here for a good time and a long time.

@manorinthewoods asked: Alright, here's another transtimeline fun fact. Each of the kids was supposed to have a Quest related to their associated material - John had a land covered in oil, Rose's ocean was polluted with chalk, the gears of LOHAC were gummed by amber, and LOFAF was in a nuclear winter. Ultimately, while the ocean of LOLAR is still chalky, nothing but John's oil made the cut. ~LOSS (16/5/23)

I think it was a good change, then. Not everything has to be a pattern, and Dave's two weird maybe-quests are a lot more unique and interesting than a generic 'materials quest'.

@captorations asked: oh hey, this walkaround! so funny story, i used to run a blog where i posted one of terezi’s canon appearances each day, in order. yes, i completed my task, and more besides. however! when i was wandering through this as terezi, a glitch rendered me trapped. i decided that this counted as a noteworthy appearance, and took a screenshot. then, by sheer coincidence, it ended up being posted on… halloween. it was pretty great (also don’t forget to check out ctrl + t)

You accessed the double-secret version of Past Karkat: Wake Up, which plays the Earthbound Halloween Hack version of Megalovania rather than the Homestuck one.

Anonymous asked: Personally, I think John gaining so many levels so quickly is tied to his role as the heir - he gains so many levels without really trying, not because he's better than the trolls or his friends, but because he just kind of falls into it. The game rewards him for taking the path of least resistance.

That certainly makes sense if we just look at John - but I have trouble reconciling this interpretation with our other Heir. Equius certainly has some advantages, but they aren't exactly unique to him, as you'd expect them to be if his Heir class was responsible for them.

Yes, he's a highblood, but he's outranked by three non-Heirs - and his strength doesn't seem to be unique either, as Feferi seems capable of similar feats. Perhaps Equius will trip and fall into more unique privilege, but it hasn't happened yet.

Anonymous asked: my personal headcanons for midnight crew claspects: Slick - Prince of Blood, Droog - Mage of Space, Boxcars - Knight of Heart, Deuce - Bard of Doom. knowing you youre probably gonna attempt to analyse these LOL

Slick has had ties to Blood since he first met Karkat, so that tracks - and Boxcars is a shipper, so Nepeta's aspect is probably the best fit for now. I'm not sure about the other two, but I'll revisit them later!

[pesterloglog]

Vriska Serket, Sollux Captor, John Egbert, Aradia Megido

Act 6, page 6025-6028

VRISKA: Hey guys! Stop dragging your feet 8ack there! You're falling so far 8ehind, you're starting to look tiny and ridiculous from here.

VRISKA: The treasure should 8e 8uried just up ahead. Let's pick up the pace!

SOLLUX: excuse me, s0me 0f us here have special needs. i think i will c0ntinue dragging my feet if y0u d0n't mind.

VRISKA: Sollux, will you just let Aranea heal your eyes already and catch the fuck up?

SOLLUX: N0!!!!!!!!!!

JOHN: hey.

JOHN: aradia, was it?

ARADIA: yes

JOHN: can i ask you something?

ARADIA: ok

JOHN: you seem reasonable, and pretty nice.

ARADIA: :)

JOHN: so i'm wondering.

JOHN: how do you feel about all this?

ARADIA: about what exactly

JOHN: about what vriska and her pirate buddies are doing.

ARADIA: you mean searching for the weapon?

ARADIA: i think its a good idea

JOHN: no, i know.

JOHN: of course it would be great to have an awesome secret weapon, whatever it is.

JOHN: i mean...

JOHN: how do you feel about the way they've been searching for it?

JOHN: by using all your ghost clone friends as bait.

JOHN: and getting the bad guy to blow them all up to reveal the way to the treasure?

ARADIA: thats probably the only way to find it

ARADIA: in my experience the specific path you travel out here is very important

ARADIA: if we did not trace that exact path in that amount of time i doubt we ever would have found the right location

ARADIA: in fact it may never have been found by anyone

JOHN: ok, yes.

JOHN: let's assume it was the only way to find it. granted.

JOHN: but i mean, does that really make it the right way to beat him?

ARADIA: i couldnt say

JOHN: well, how do you feel about it?

JOHN: most of the other pirates seem cool with it, so i'm wondering if you feel differently.

ARADIA: its probably necessary

ARADIA: and they would have embarked on this voyage whether i had come along or not

ARADIA: so i might as well join the fun!

ARADIA: isnt that what you did when you saw our ship?

JOHN: um...

JOHN: sort of.

JOHN: but i didn't know what you were all doing yet.

ARADIA: yes but once you found out you continued journeying with us

JOHN: yeah, but...

JOHN: i'm just hanging out here cause i'm asleep! what else was i going to do?

ARADIA: exactly!

ARADIA: i dont necessarily share their point of view on the meaning of this endeavor though

ARADIA: they consider this to be a great clash between good and evil

ARADIA: but i prefer to look at the coming battle as a matter of housekeeping

ARADIA: in the end all loops must be tidied up

ARADIA: even his

JOHN: ok, but what about your friends!

JOHN: don't you care about them?

ARADIA: of course i do!

ARADIA: i love all my friends

JOHN: then why do you seem so...

JOHN: cheerful?

JOHN: when so many of them are getting zapped by lasers.

ARADIA: do i seem cheerful about that

JOHN: kinda!

ARADIA: i apologize if that is the way i am behaving

ARADIA: it is not true though

ARADIA: i think i look at death differently than most

ARADIA: and it is fair to say this attitude extends to death after death as well

ARADIA: i have learned to be at ease with the cessation of being in any form it takes

ARADIA: but i am not nor will i ever be the monsters handmaid

ARADIA: so please believe that i would never take joy from the destruction of any soul

ARADIA: however you must realize that it is only by the grace of the horrorterrors that so many have been allowed to continue existing for so long

ARADIA: they have persisted for ages beyond their time just as he has

ARADIA: as such it seems to me his rampage is just another kind of housekeeping

ARADIA: while he rounds the ring undoing the work of the gods we must prepare for his undoing as well

ARADIA: to ready the manor for the lords arrival so to speak :)

JOHN: ...

JOHN: i'm sorry, maybe i spaced out through some of that.

JOHN: but i'm still not sure what you're talking about.

JOHN: maybe you could just simplify it for me.

JOHN: are you a good guy or a bad guy?

ARADIA: i dont like to think of myself in those terms

ARADIA: but i do try to be nice to people!

JOHN: dammit.

JOHN: ok, could you just... maybe...

JOHN: give me an idea of what it is you actually want out of all this?

ARADIA: what i want?

ARADIA: hmmm

ARADIA: thats a pretty good question

ARADIA: i think i mostly want to see what happens when this whole place breaks apart

[davekat-sucks]

If the Dream Bubbles in HSBC are suddenly made by someone new

It kind of makes Feferi's wish to have a place for her dead friends to hang out kind of meaningless if someone else can do it. She was the only troll who was nice to her lusus, Gl'bgolyb. Meenah and the Condesce probably just see them as a monster pet. But Feferi was the one who cared about her as a guardian. She is one of the few trolls that got close with the Horrorterrors and they granted her wish for a purgatory space for her friends. Feferi actually had a lot of power in her hand in not just her blood color, but connections with higher beings like the Horrorterrors. Maybe in a sense, that is one of the few times we do see her being like a leader or Heiress. Now that a new Dream Bubble suddenly shows up and its confirmed by Kanaya that all the Dream Bubbles are DESTROYED, it says that everything Feferi did and cared for, was for NOTHING. Her wish is a waste because it would be destroyed anyway. She and the rest of the troll ghosts, just now cease to exist. Nothing is left of her or her friends. There is no proof left that she had been the one to start it. But hey, nobody in this recent fandom actually gives a shit about Feferi. None of the living trolls like Kanaya, Terezi, Vriska, Aradia, Sollux, or Karkat... cares about their dead friends. People remember more about Aradia being the keeper Dream Bubbles than Feferi being the one who made it all happen. So why not let some random new OC show up and say they created a Dream Bubble? Nobody gives a fucking damn about Feferi. Not Andrew Hussie, not James Roach, not WhatPumpkin, not HICU, and not even the fandom.

[missiodei]

If I'm not late to the alternia meme..

💀🎭♦️🧿🌅♠️ for Nikola?

Why me first… _

💀- Are you strong enough to face shadow droppers on your own if faced with them?

A te che cazzo te ne frega- You want to set me up or something? I'll put my bullets and knives in you then take care of that thing, how about that? _

🎭- How do you access entertainment? What is available to you to do for fun?

There are many places to shop or hang around, bars to meet other trolls or arcades to waste time in in my city. If you must know. _

♦️- Do you think it's dangerous for lowvbloods to be pale with highbloods?

That ain't my business. They should know what they're getting into. _

🧿- Do you believe in horrorterrors? Or do you believe they're just scary stories?

Made up bullshit. What the fuck do I care about some fantastical cosmic shit when the real horrors are right in my fucking face. _

🌅- Do you have a certain routine for starting your night?

Get up, shower, eat, figure out what I'm gonna do if I have no plans or work. _

♠️- Do you think pitches should only be based on hate, or do you believe they should also be based on a strong rivalry as well?

Per l'amore di-- _ ---> He groans. Is the rivalry not part of the hate? I thought that went hand-in-hand- Actually, whatever, nevermind I don't care. I don't give a fuck what other trolls get up to in their relationships, so I'm not gonna sit here and say what something 'should' be based in. _

Alternian Ask Meme

[windy-trickster]

aand these for Ambi 🌅💅🎭🧿🪦🎄🐚

🌅- Do you have a certain routine for starting your night? "Uhhh... Not really! I normally just brush my teeth and put up my mass amount of hair before hittin' the hay!" 💅- Do you have time or resources for self care or small luxuries? "I mean. I guess? I have the luxury of hanging out with my best friends everyday if that counts! I'm very good at collecting natural resources as well! And self care wise... I always make sure to eat properly, clean myself and wash my face! My uncle always told me that a clean body is a happy body!" 🎭- How do you access entertainment? What is available to you to do for fun? "Anything can be entertainment if it's genuinely fun to you! I like walking down to the ocean to talk with my patron troll! He's this cute, anxious little seadweller but he's always a joy to talk to." 🧿- Do you believe in horrorterrors? Or do you believe they're just scary stories? ".... Yeah. I do. I've seen them too." 🪦- Do you believe everyone should be given a proper burial or is it a waste of time to have gravediggers? "If you bury the ones you love, they'll come back as nice spirits to help you out later on in life! That's what my uncle always told me. I think gravediggers are pretty cool!" 🎄- Do you celebrate holidays of any sort? If so, what ones? "Valentine's Day, Christmas, Halloween. All of the little holidays!" 🐚- Are you afraid of the beach or ocean? If so, what reasons? "I like the ocean! It's where my patron troll lives! He's super cool even if he's a little awkward at times. I also know how to swim and hold my breath for a really long time!!"

[astrumocs]

❤️ ♠️ 💅🌞🧿🐾🎭 for kilani!!!!!

🌞- Have you ever gone out or gotten caught out of your hive during daylight? What happened?

"Of course not, darling, I'm no fool. I keep track of my time, not keen to use it getting caught out in the daylight."

💅- Do you have time or resources for self-care or small luxuries?

"I make time for it, of course-- and yes, I do have the resources, I've worked hard to have them." "You'll do yourself no favors by ignoring the wants and needs of your body, even if you don't think you're the type to need it."

🎭- How do you access entertainment? What is available to you to do for fun?

"Doesn't this get an obvious answer from most folks? No, it's a bit wrong of me to assume that; I use the tv, my phone, my partner, and a variety of public places to get most of my entertainment."

"Lae will drag me along to nightclubs and things every now and then, I don't mind them much if they have a nice atmosphere and decent drinks."

🧿- Do you believe in horrorterrors? Or do you believe they're just scary stories?

"I hate to say I really couldn't care less, the only horrorterrors I'm familiar with are some of the divas I have to try and send down the runway."

♥️- Do you think that pity should still be considered the normal feeling for a red or would you say love is a more common practice to look for in a mate?

"Sure, I guess. I like a man who can be a little pitiful every now and then, but do I think it's some kind of requirement or anything? Of course not. If you want my two cents, I think the foundation of any quadrant should always be some type of love."

♠️- Do you think pitches should only be based on hate, or do you believe they should also be based on a strong rivalry as well?

"I don't think hate should be all there is-- your relationship is going to crash, burn, and fizzle out if you have nothing to offer besides petty vitriol. I don't have time for that sort of energy."

"It seems like a real waste of your time to commit to someone if you can't stand to be around them at all."

🐾- What is your lusus like? Are/were they around often or do/did they normally leave you all by yourself?

"She's a real drama queen, but I respect her. If it weren't for her, I think my take-no-shit attitude might've come to me much later in my life. People just loved to change up their shitty little attitudes when she came stalking around the corner, I'll tell you that much."

"She was around when it counted, but she valued her and I's independence, and it was difficult for her to hang around the hive due to her size anyway."